Run Against the Wind
by mallowmelting
Summary: —ABANDONED— Kind of a fantasy AU, but kind of not. The Ancients say that there were once eight intelligent species on the planet. Eleven-year-old Tam and Linh have discovered the eighth species, but dark forces threaten to destroy them for good. The twins will have to run against the wind to save the winged creatures.
1. Babies and Daydreamers

A/N: Hello everyone! I've had this story idea for a while, but I was going to wait until after Camp NaNoWriMo was over. But since I've officially given up my camp project (don't be sorry, it was doomed anyway), I've decided to start posting it now.

 _Run Against the Wind_ is kind of a fantasy AU, but kind of not. It has fantastical elements (ones that aren't canon in the KEEPER world, of course), but there's nothing in the books that says the events in this story couldn't have happened. The story follows Tam and Linh's fateful encounter with a group of zephyrs (a fantasy species) over the course of one weekend during their eleventh year—right before they started at Foxfire. Because we know barely anything about the twins' backstory before they enrolled in Foxfire, this technically could have happened. It's very unlikely that it did, though.

The story is going to be short; it'll only be nine chapters and will probably end up at around 10K words of content (not including the A/Ns). It's not in the same universe as _Swan Song_ and sort of in the same universe as _Nightfall_ (my fanfiction—not the real version) in that there are some connections between the two in terms of setting. The story takes place in and fleshes out the southern half of the Lost Cities, which you will know about if you read _Nightfall_! *finger guns* But yeah, there's a reason why I'm starting this story at around the same time as the keepers go to Choralmere in _Nightfall_.

I'm definitely not going to update as often as I'm currently updating _Nightfall_. I'm not on as much of a time constraint with this one, so I'll probably update once every couple weeks.

So here's my sort-of-fantasy-AU-but-sort-of-not and sort-of- _Nightfall_ -spinoff-but-sort-of-not . . . I hope you enjoy it! :)

* * *

 **CHAPTER ONE  
** **BABIES AND DAYDREAMERS**

 _The Ancients say that there were once eight intelligent species on the planet. Elves, ogres, goblins, gnomes, humans, dwarves, trolls . . . and the zephyrs._

 _The tribes of old were ferocious. They killed each other, set fire to the forests, and tore down the flimsy straw huts that their rivals had built. The zephyrs were the most dangerous of all. They were taller than ogres and stronger than goblins, and one beat of their glowing wings could send whole villages spinning away in the wind. They say the zephyrs were the first to summon Everblaze, to master the art of breaking minds, to shatter stone with the sheer force of their will. And this way, they conquered much of the earth._

 _Until war broke out between the eight species. It raged for nine summers and winters. Blood rained down from the sky and turned the lakes red. By the end, each species had gone nearly extinct._

 _From the ruins of this world came the beginnings of civilization. The eight species reconciled. They began to work together, build together, walk upright. Together, they built palaces made of jewels instead of huts made of stone and straw. They learned to light leap and bottle storms._

 _But the zephyrs saw what the world would soon become, for they were cursed with the gift of prophecy. And they knew their species could not stay. The world was becoming too enlightened, too orderly for the zephyrs, who were creatures of chaos. So as the elves divided the world among the species and their lands slowly shrank in size, they grew smaller as well._

 _The zephyrs began to hide._

 _They fled to the south, past the Calmest Sea, where the forests were still wild and untainted by elvin dominance. There were elves past the sea, but they had no desire for jewels or power, and the zephyrs bred with them once they grew small enough to do so. The children born from such pairings had shockingly silver eyes, and they manifested peculiar talents that the elves of the north could only dream of possessing._

 _But the zephyrs continued shrinking in both number and size. Within a generation they were half the size of an elf. Another generation, and they could be mistaken for fireflies. One generation more, and they were nothing but myth to southern children who had only the barest hints of silver in their eyes._

 _And the zephyrs continued to hide, retreating further and further into the wilds. Waiting for chaos to return._

* * *

Tam hid just past the tree line, watching his twin play on the beach. Linh would wait on the edge of the dry sand until the waves receded, then dart forward. But before the water could brush her bare toes, she would scamper back up the beach, laughing.

He watched her, a feeling growing in his chest that his six-year-old self couldn't place. When she was laughing, Linh seemed almost normal. If he didn't know her, he would never have been able to tell that she was different.

She skipped away from the coming tide again, her long hair glistening in the setting sun. Was it just Tam's imagination, or did the sea give a tiny tremor as it neared her? Did it shiver and inch away from her sandy feet as if bowing in respect?

Mai Song's voice cut through the sound of the ocean.

"Tam, Linh! Come in—it's time for dinner!"

Linh took off toward the tree line, brushing sand from her legs. Quiet as a shadow, Tam reached forward and snatched up her shoes. He retreated further into the copse, clutching the shoes to his chest. It was payback for when she had pushed him into the shallows last week.

Tam took a step backward, then another. His feet avoided sticks and fallen leaves easily. He had always been good at disappearing. When the attention got to be too much, he could simply fade into the background. Whereas Linh exuded presence like a mirror reflects sunlight, and everyone still ignored her.

He walked backward another few meters. The raintrees were older here, and closer together. He wove through their trunks like a needle, dodging branches and seed pods as they fell.

Maybe he would hide here for the rest of the night. His father would find him in the morning and probably yell at him, but Tam could take it. He had taken it for six years. He could fade into the background.

A glimmer of light caught Tam's attention from the corner of his eye. But when he turned, it was gone. He waited, holding his breath. Was someone else hiding in the copse?

Then it came again, a glowing silver pinprick just beyond the next row of trees. It hung there in the air for a moment, pulsing like a tiny heartbeat. Then it took off through the trees.

Tam chased after it, swerving between trees and jumping over fallen logs. He dropped one of Linh's shoes on the way but couldn't afford the time to pick it up. Whenever he thought he was getting closer, the light would disappear. But it would always reappear a second or two later, then fly away in a completely different direction. Almost like it was teasing him.

Finally, he stumbled into a mossy clearing. He was breathing hard, soaked in sweat, and still carrying one of his twin's shoes. He looked around—he seemed to have lost the light creature for good.

Then he noticed the toadstools lined up in front of him. Heartbeat racing, he did a quick check and saw that he was surrounded by the little red-and-white caps.

 _It's a fairy ring,_ he realized. All the stories he had read about elves being trapped in a fairy ring and turned invisible forever flooded into the front of his mind.

The rational half of his brain told him to relax. Those were just tales. The rings had some scientific explanation. They didn't have the power to turn him invisible. But the other half, the louder half, was screaming at him to get out before it was too late.

He was about to turn tail and run when the light creature appeared less than a meter in front of him. He stifled a scream.

The creature was tiny and thin, no bigger than his forefinger. It had wings of spun silk, and it seemed to float on the wind as if it weighed nothing at all. Its whole body emanated with pure silver light. The best description Tam could give was that the creature looked like a whisper.

"Hello," he murmured, forgetting his fear.

The creature seemed to be evaluating him, sliding her gaze (for he had decided it was a her) up and down his face. Finally her eyes landed on his own. They were wise eyes, knowledgeable ones, and Tam could tell she was quite old.

"Who are you?" he asked.

The creature spoke, and although the words were foreign to Tam, he understood their meaning.

"Not yet," she whispered. "You're still too young."

"What does that mean?"

"Not yet." And she vanished.

"Wait! Where did you go?"

He heard a stick break behind him, and he whirled around. Linh was standing at the edge of the clearing, still barefoot, holding her discarded shoe.

"I k-knew you had my shoe, Tam S-song."

After the creature had left, Tam had started to feel afraid again. His twin's stammers relaxed his fear. He would recognize that voice anywhere.

"G-give it to me." She yanked the shoe out of his hands.

"I thought you were at dinner with Mother and Father."

"I walked out once I knew you weren't c-coming. Were you p-planning to spend the night?"

"I guess so. I wasn't really thinking about it."

"You just wanted to h-hide my shoe." Her tone was accusatory.

She sat down against an oak tree and yawned. "I'll stay with you. T-tonight, at least. It's a favor." She closed her eyes.

"Linh . . ."

She opened one eye. "What?"

"You're in a fairy ring."

"Fairy rings are for b-babies and daydreamers."

"I think I met a zephyr here."

"Zephyrs are for d-daydreamers, too. There's nothing in the forest, Tam. It's all fables."

As Tam settled down next to her, he began to believe he had imagined the winged creature after all.

* * *

A/N: I surprisingly did a lot of research for this, so I'm going to do a little "let's learn something new" session at the end of every chapter! I hope you find it interesting—I certainly did. (PM me if you want sources on these facts—I'm happy to provide further reading!)

The raintree ( _Albizia saman_ ), more commonly known as a monkey pod tree, is a species of flowering tree. (It actually has a _ton_ of names from around the word—I found sixty-seven on Wikipedia alone. Some of my favorites are _thoongu moonji maram_ (தூங்குமூஞ்சி மரம்), which means "sleepy tree" in Tamil, and _pukul lima_ , which means "five o'clock tree" in Malay.) The tree is native to South America but has been widely introduced to South/Southeast Asia and Hawaii. It can reach a height of 82 feet (25 meters), and its flowers come in a variety of colors from reddish pink to creamy golden.

Fairy rings (also known as fairy circles and elf rings *wink wink*) are mushrooms that have naturally grown in a circle. They can grow up to 33 feet (10 meters) in diameter, and are formed because the mycelium (underground roots) of a species of mushroom called _Marasmius oreades_ grows outward in a circle. in In Celtic mythology (as well as some other Western European folklore), fairies dance in the rings. If a mortal enters a fairy ring, they might be trapped inside the ring, driven mad, turned invisible, forced to dance forever, or even hanged . . . but it all depends on who's telling the story.


	2. To Stay Or To Go

A/N: Hey all, sorry for the long wait. A bit of context for this chapter that I couldn't quite find a way to fit in: Most southern elves never cross the sea once in their whole lives. Most southern families don't even send their children to Foxfire. They either teach them themselves or hire a tutor—and that tutor is almost always southern, unlike Sofia (who you'll meet in this chapter).

* * *

 **CHAPTER TWO  
** **TO STAY OR TO GO**

 _Five Years Later…_

Linh chewed the end of her pencil.

"Tam, what's a synonym for 'better'?"

"Of superior quality," he answered. She scribbled it down.

"How about 'a government ruled by the seas'?"

Her twin looked up from his book. "What are you even writing your essay about?"

"The overseas migration of nomadic troll tribes from the Rocktwist to the Scarlet Mountains during the Era of a Thousand Councils."

He shook his head incredulously. "Thalassiarchy."

"Thank you," she said with exaggerated politeness. She could almost feel him rolling his eyes.

"You're so _northern_."

"I am n-not!"

She coughed quickly to cover up her mistake. Her stutter had faded with time, but she would still occasionally slip up.

"Yes, you are. 'The overseas migration of nomadic troll tribes from the Rocktwist to the Scarlet Mountains during the Era of a Thousand Councils,'" he mocked.

She finished the last sentence of her essay and signed it with a flourish. Then she spun around once in her spinny desk chair. "If I was _northern_ , would Lady Sofia have given me a gold star on my last _five_ essays?"

"Just what I'm saying. You're northern. Mom and Dad and Sofia have brainwashed you."

She frowned. "Well then you're n-northern too!"

"You don't even know what that word means."

Linh didn't answer him. She didn't want to admit that he was right.

"What are you writing _your_ essay on, then?"

"I haven't started it yet."

" _Tam…_ "

"All I need is an hour or so to write it. It'll be good enough."

"Don't you want to be _more_ than good enough?"

"What's the point in that?"

Linh had just opened her mouth to reply when their bedroom door was thrown open.

"Knock, please," she and Tam said in unison. Not that it mattered—their parents had been entering their room unannounced for years, regardless of how many times the twins had asked them not to.

When she saw who was at the door, Linh spun out of her chair, papers in hand. "Lady Sofia, I've finished my essay!"

Lady Sofia was dressed immaculately as usual. She wore a sleeveless cherry-red dress and a matching cape that stood out against her warm taupe skin. Red beads and feathers were braided into her long silver hair. Linh had always envied her hair. She would have liked to dye her own hair silver, but she knew her parents would never allow it.

But what was most striking about Lady Sofia was her eyes. While everyone else Linh knew had silver flecks in their eyes, hers were pure blue like the ocean, with a tiny bit of green at the edges. Her eyes and her northern dress would always set her apart and remind everyone that she had come from across the sea.

Linh had the feeling that Lady Sofia would rather wear pants and let her hair lie loose like all the southern families did, but Quan and Mai wanted her to look _professional_. She never objected. She _was_ Talentless, after all. She didn't want to lose her job.

She reached out and took the sheaf of papers from Linh. She glanced at the first page and frowned.

"Linh, you _have_ to be more organized." She tapped a red-painted nail on the page. "No more cross-outs or extra notes in the margins, or I'll have to start taking off points."

"Why are you here?" Tam said from his bed at the other end of the room.

"Because she's our tutor," Linh said back to him.

"Don't be mean to your twin, Linh," Lady Sofia chastised gently. That was another thing Linh liked about her tutor—she never called Tam her brother, like their parents did. She always called him her twin.

"Your parents would like you to join them for dinner tonight," she said. She raised an eyebrow at Linh's shorts and Tam's pajamas. "I suggest you both change into something more appropriate."

Linh walked to her closet to look for a dress. "Why do they want us to come to dinner?"

"Yeah, what for?" Tam chimed in. He didn't move from his spot on the bed.

"They'd like it to be a surprise."

Linh picked up a pale blue gown from the shag carpeting. It was a little crumpled, but it would probably take her an hour to find another dress—or even a clean shirt—in the mess that was her closet.

She turned on the closet light and closed the door to change. As she struggled to pull the gown over her head—she hadn't worn it in a year, and it was a little small—she heard Tam talking to Lady Sofia.

"Why now?" he asked her. "It's not a holiday. It's not our birthday, and it's not their anniversary. Why today?"

"I told you, it's a surprise."

"Whatever they're going to accuse us of having done, it wasn't me."

"Tam—"

"Okay, fine. It was probably me."

Linh giggled. She floofed her skirt a little bit and opened the closet door.

"I promise you this dinner will be nothing of the sort—" Lady Sofia stopped when she saw Linh. She sighed and hurried to Linh's side, where she tried in vain to smooth over the wrinkles in her dress.

"Tam, get your twin a hairbrush. It's like a rat's nest up there."

* * *

Linh stood just behind the massive archway to the dining room. Her head really hurt. Lady Sofia had teased and yanked and curled her hair until it sat on top of her head in an enormous bun, with ringlets on each side. When he had seen her hair, Tam had laughed at her and called her _northern_ again.

Of course, the ringlets had come out five minutes after the irons had been taken out, and now her hair hung on either side of her head like a pair of limp noodles. Linh tucked a strand behind her ear.

"You can go in," Lady Sofia whispered. She gave Linh a little nudge.

Linh didn't know why she was so _nervous_. They were only her parents, after all. But she had never felt comfortable around them, maybe because she didn't know them all that well. Her father was always working—he was an Emissary for the northern Council—and her mother… well, her mother never spent much time with her.

Too late, she realized her hands were sweaty and shaking.

Tam must have noticed, because he placed his warm hand in her palm. She gripped it tight. Finally, she felt brave enough to cross the archway.

The twins matched each other step for step as they made their way toward the dining table. The cold of the black marble floor seeped through her thin slippers. The entire room had sheer black walls and drawn curtains. It was lit only by a balefire lantern at each corner of the table. But even so, Linh felt like she was walking under a spotlight. With her free hand, she tried to flatten the creases in her skirt. She hoped neither of her parents would notice.

"Tam, Linh, we're so glad you decided to join us," her father said. He was all right angles—rectangular shoulders, jutting chin, square jaw. But his pale silver eyes were soft. They danced in the dim blue candlelight.

"Sit down," said her mother. Mai Song's voice was flinty and made Linh want to flinch every time she spoke to her. Like Lady Sofia, she dressed like she was going to a Council meeting every day. Tonight she was wearing a midnight blue dress and cape that spilled all over her chair like water. As Linh pulled out her chair and sat down, she couldn't help but feel a bit like an ugly duckling, especially when her mother narrowed her eyes at her daughter's wrinkled dress.

She snapped her fingers, and four covered dishes appeared before each of them. She had a comically sour look on her face as she lifted the lid from her plate, as if she resented having to do all this work herself. Linh had to keep her eyes on her plate to stop herself from laughing out loud.

She twirled the glass noodles around her chopsticks, wincing at the sound they made when she picked them up. The discomfiture in the room was palpable. It occurred to her that her parents didn't know what to say to their children any more than she and Tam knew what to say to them.

Finally, her father cleared his throat and spoke. "How are your tutoring sessions going?"

"Well." The word came out as a hiccup. She tried again. "They're going well."

"That's good. Tam?"

"Same."

"Lady Sofia says you both have a lot of skill. She says that you, Tam, have a gift for memorization. And that Linh is remarkably astute for a girl of ten."

"Eleven," Linh corrected. She looked up from her plate. "I'm eleven, Dad. Tam and I are _twins_ , remember?"

"Er—"

"I don't know _where_ you two got that idea," her mother interjected. "You are _not_ twins, and I of all people should know—I'm the one who gave birth to you. You're ten and Tam is eleven. He's the firstborn, and he'll be attending Foxfire in the fall."

" _What?_ " Tam shouted.

Mai picked up her glass and took a small sip. "Don't raise your voice, Tam, you know how that makes me feel faint."

Quan put a comforting hand on his wife's shoulder. "Now, nothing has been finalized yet. The entrance exam will still have to be passed a few months from now. Although Lady Sofia is confident of your abilities, Tam, you will have to study."

"No one here sends their kids to Foxfire."

" _My_ parents did," said Quan. "Your mother and I would like for you to have the same opportunity as I did—to be in the nobility, working for the Council. That's what you want, right?"

"No." Tam was shaking his head. "That's what _you_ want."

 _I'd like to work for the Council,_ Linh thought. But she didn't say it. No one ever listened to her when she said those kinds of things anyway.

"Why do you want me to be like them?" said Tam. "Don't think I can't see what you're doing. Hiring Sofia as our tutor, wearing jewels at home, even having our house built facing the ocean— _why do you want me to be northern_?"

He threw down his chopsticks and stormed out.

"Tam!" Linh reached out a hand as he disappeared through the archway. As if that would have stopped him.

She had two options: to stay or to go. Her parents were both looking at her expectantly. They wanted her to stay. She wanted to stay, too.

 _Let me go to Foxfire,_ she wanted to say to them. _If Tam doesn't want to go, sign me up instead._

It would have been so easy to say it. But she didn't. She put down her chopsticks and got up from her chair. She had to say something. Something that would make it seem like she wasn't blindly following Tam into whatever mess he was getting himself into. But what could she say? Her tongue was frozen.

"I'm e-eleven," she stammered. "N-not ten."

Then she stumbled out of the dining room, tripping over her feet as she went.

* * *

A/N: Thalassiarchy (also thalassocracy) is a real word (albeit an obscure one) meaning "sovereignty of the seas". It's derived from the Greek _thalassa_ (θάλασσα), meaning "sea", and the Latin _archia_ , meaning "rule". So, rule by seas.

Obsidian, which is what the walls of the Songs' dining room is made of, is a naturally occurring volcanic glass formed as an igneous rock. It is created when lava from a volcano cools extremely rapidly without any crystallization, producing a glasslike rock. Pure obsidian is black or blackish green, but the presence of other minerals (known as impurities) in the rock can alter its color slightly. For example, cristobalite crystals can produce blotchy white patches, creating what is known as snowflake obsidian. Magnenite nanoparticles can give the rock an iridescent sheen, and these are known as rainbow obsidian. Also, gas bubbles from the lava sometimes give the obsidian a golden sheen, making sheen obsidian.

Glass noodles (also known as cellophane noodles, bean threads, and Chinese vermicelli) are a type of Asian noodle made from starch (usually potatoes or mung beans). I actually had to look up what they were called in English because I only knew them as _japchae_ (잡채), which is a Korean dish made with cellophane noodles.

This last one isn't a researched fact, but I know from personal experience that Linh's Asian hair struggles are one hundred percent real. If I curl my hair, all it takes is a tiny poke and it's straight again. And the buns, the buns, the buns. I once was at this kiosk at the mall that sold magnetic hair accessories (they were actually pretty cool) and was run by a Korean woman who must have summoned the devil and made a deal with him because she put my hair in a beautiful, perfect bun in about five seconds. To this day, I still have no clue how she could have done it without divine assistance because putting my hair in a decent-looking bun requires half an hour, three hairties, and a tub full of bobby pins and tears.


	3. Hopeless Cases

**CHAPTER THREE  
** **HOPLESS CASES**

He raced through the raintrees.

Tam was too old to be running away like this. _You're a coward_ , he thought as he weaved through the tree trunks. _Running away from what scares you instead of facing it. You're hopeless._

Linh was crashing through the copse like a blind T-rex. He didn't want to face her, so he kept running. He was faster than his twin, and quieter too. He followed his own shadow as it slithered across the ground.

"Tam!" she shouted. "Tam, come back!"

A silver blur zipped past his face, making Tam stop short. Linh caught up to him, red-faced and panting. Her face and arms were covered in scratches from running into branches.

She laid a gentle hand on his arm. He flinched, but she didn't take her hand away.

"I won't let them take you away from here."

"There's nothing you can do—"

"There's _always_ something you can do," she said. "Look, Mom and Dad just want one of their children to go to Foxfire. They won't care which one it is. I'll ask them if I can go north instead of you."

"No," Tam said immediately. "We can't be separated. Ever." Just thinking of what might happen if Linh left Choralmere filled him with panic. He clasped his hands behind his back, trying to stop their shaking.

 _Stop being so afraid. You're spineless, clueless, useless. Hopeless._

"Well, do you have a better idea?" said Linh.

He turned around so they were facing each other. He clenched his trembling hands into fists. "We run away. Both of us."

She blinked. "What?"

"We can go north, or east, or west—anywhere in the world. We'll sneak to the Leapmaster. And if we can't, we'll steal a boat at the docks to cross the sea. Or swim, if we have to—"

"S-stop. Stop." She held her hands up. "What are you _thinking_? We can't just _leave_."

"But why can't we?"

"Tam…" She was at a loss for words. "We're _eleven_."

"I don't see why that matters."

"What would Lady Sofia think?"

"I don't care what she thinks."

"What would our _parents_ think?"

"Mom wouldn't even notice we were gone, and we'd be too far away for Dad to do anything about it."

"What if we get caught?"

Tam froze, his mouth half-open. He had been so caught up in the details, he hadn't even thought of what would happen if they were found by their father.

 _All you can do is remember sentences and spit them out again. But when there's anything important, anything you need to remember, you forget. Our world has no room for hopeless cases like you._

His shoulders slumped. "I guess you're right."

Linh took his hands in her own slender ones and uncurled his rigid fingers. They slowly relaxed.

"I _want_ to go to Foxfire," she said. "It'll be a win-win."

He shook his head emphatically. "No. We can't be separated," he said again.

"It'll just be during the day. I'll leap home in the evenings. Why are you so against it? Are you _jealous_?"

"Of course not!"

"Then what's the problem?"

Tam wanted to tell her, he really did. But he couldn't. He was too ashamed.

"You're talking about this like you know Dad will say yes."

Linh blinked, like she hadn't thought of that before.

"He—he will," she said hesitantly. "He'll say yes. Why wouldn't he?"

"You're a second child, even if only by a few minutes. You know how much Dad cares about purity. According to him, you have less potential than me. He'd never trade me for you."

She stared at him, still unconvinced. Linh was so oblivious sometimes, blissfully unaware of the rifts and divides between north and south, noble and Talentless, first- and second-born. Sometimes Tam wondered how the two of them could have grown up with the same parents under the same roof in the same half of the Lost Cities, and yet turned out so different from each other.

But then again, they hadn't grown up with quite the same parents.

"If he says n-no… I'll tell him you're not ready," said Linh. "That you're not mature enough for Foxfire. Or that I don't think you can pass the exam. That would convince him. He'd never be able to deal with the shame of having a son who failed the Foxfire entrance exam." Her eyes suddenly lit up. "I know—you could fail the exam on purpose!"

He wanted to, and he wished he could. But his father would know if he did.

"The test is constructed so it's impossible to fail yourself," he said, remembering a book he had read on the subject. "You wear a thinking cap, and a Telepath is in your head the whole time. It's foolproof."

He pushed aside a tangle of vines. "I'm spending the night here. You can stay, or you can go back home and tell Dad whatever you want. He'll never agree."

"He _w-will_ —"

"Not if you stutter like that."

Tam knew he had struck a nerve. Without looking back, he ducked through the curtain of vines.

* * *

Night had fallen, and the copse was dark and cool. The raintrees were so close together that Tam could touch the trunks on either side without straightening his arms.

He emerged into a mossy clearing. He had never been to this part of the forest before, but he felt the same prickle in his mind that he always felt when he was remembering.

Something rustled in the darkness. Then a shape emerged from the bushes at the edge of the clearing. He picked up a fallen branch from the grass and held it up like a club.

"Go away! I have a weapon!"

"It's just me, silly." Linh swatted the branch from his hand. "What did you think I was—a sabertooth?"

 _Always looking behind you, never watching what's right in front of your face. You know what happens to elves who are hopeless like you? They're eaten alive._

"There aren't any sabertooths in the south," he said, forcing the image of him being eaten alive alone in the dark forest from his mind. "And I could hear you galumphing through the forest from a mile away. But I thought you went back to the house."

"You gave me a choice. I chose to stay." She looked around. "Where are we?"

One by one, tiny glowing silver dots appeared in a dome around the twins. There must have been thousands of them illuminating the circle of red-and-white toadstools around them. Linh gasped.

Tam remembered when he had been here before. It was five years ago. He had stolen Linh's shoes.

"I thought I dreamed this place," he whispered.

"You dreamed the fairy ring no more than we dreamed you," said a quivering voice next to Tam's ear.

He yelped in surprise.

"Hush," said the creature. She darted in front of his face, making his eyes cross. She was just as he remembered her—the size of his index finger, spun-silk wings, wise old eyes. Those eyes inspected him. "You've grown."

"Who—what—are you?" said Linh. Her eyes were wide.

"Oh! I have failed to introduce myself. I am Gatalea. And your names are?"

Linh was opening and closing her mouth like a beached fish, so Tam answered. "I'm Tam Song, and that's my twin sister Linh."

"Twins!" Gatalea said the word like music. "How lucky! Two sides of the same coin."

"You're a zephyr," he said. His head was spinning. He had never heard twins described as lucky before.

"That is what the elves called us, yes."

Linh finally managed to speak. "How can I understand you? You're not speaking the Enlightened Language."

"You are of our kind, Linh Song," said the zephyr. "Most southern elves have just a drop of our blood in them. But you two, your blood is strong."

"Are you saying… Tam and I are part zephyr?"

"Most are." She flicked her wings. "Come." She flew into the trees. Tam and Linh exchanged a look, then followed.

"Where are you taking us?" he asked.

"You are needed!" she called out.

"What does that mean?" said Linh.

But Galatea was nowhere to be found. The twins were alone in the copse. Tam shivered. Linh grabbed his hand.

Then they heard the voices. The whispers of thousands of zephyrs filled the copse.

" _Silver eyes of shadow and sea,  
_ _Different sides of the same twin,  
_ _Will discover the darkness's key,  
_ _And run against the wind._ "

Then everything was silent.

Linh turned toward Tam, her eyes shining. "Did you hear that?"

He nodded numbly, too confused to respond. But he did know one thing.

"We're lost."

The silver glow of a zephyr flickered to life a meter in front of him. Then a second appeared, and a third, until there was a trail of zephyrs snaking through the copse.

"Home." Linh stretched up to her tiptoes. "The zephyrs are leading us home." Her voice was relieved, but Tam's heart was pounding. He had just realized something.

 _I don't even know why you bother coming home. We'd all be better off if you left and never returned. Everything about you is hopeless, son._

When Galatea was in his line of sight, his father's voice hadn't plagued his memories.

* * *

A/N: Tam is a poor, tortured child and I want to hug him and take him away from his father forever.

Just wanted to put that out there.

I'm kinda scraping the bottom of the barrel for the fun facts for this chapter, so here you go:

The saber-toothed tiger ( _Smilodon fatalis_ ) is an extinct species of predatory cat characterized by long, curved, saber-shaped canine teeth. Although they are known for having lived during the Ice Age, they were actually found worldwide from the Eocene epoch all the way to the end of the Pleistocene epoch (about 42 million years ago to 11 thousand years ago).


	4. The Tree Branch Breaking

A/N: Trigger warning for child abuse (you saw that coming though) and the elvin equivalent of drug addiction.

So because of that stuff, I've changed the rating to T because I wrote this chapter and then I said to myself, "No. This is not K+. This is not anywhere near K+. For the love of all that is holy, please change the rating of this fanfiction." So now it's T. This always seems to happen with my stories—they start out as K+ and then I realize that my mind is too twisted for the story to remain K+.

Here's the thing. There's a scene—more like a paragraph, actually—toward the beginning of this chapter that could potentially be problematic. It was hard for me to write, and it'll likely be hard for you to read. No, it was not absolutely necessary. Yes, I could have replaced it with something less drastic. But I've slept on the decision, and I've decided to keep it in (although I _am_ still a bit conflicted about it). It's meant to elicit a strong reaction that only something this 'out-there' could provoke.

* * *

 **CHAPTER FOUR  
** **THE TREE BRANCH BREAKING**

The window slid open with a click. Tam clambered through first, and he flicked on the light. Then came Linh. She had only just planted her feet on the carpet when the bedroom door swung open.

"Knock, please."

Quan Song strode into the room alone, his black cape streaming behind him. Linh could tell he was on edge. His jaw was tensed and his arms hung stiffly at his sides. She reached behind her and quietly closed the window.

Her father looked down at the twins sitting on the floor. His eyes widened. "What is the meaning of this? It's well past your bedtime."

Linh started to apologize, but Tam interrupted her.

"That's right, it's way past our bedtime. So why did you come into our room?" he said defiantly.

Their father frowned. "I was _hoping_ to speak with you alone, Tam. I know you never fall asleep for hours."

Tam looked down and started fidgeting with his fingers. Linh came to his rescue.

"That's funny," she said. "Because _I_ was hoping to speak with _you_."

"Oh?" Her father sat down on her bed. "About what?"

She swallowed hard. This was it. This was the moment she had been preparing for the whole walk home. But something was different than how she had imagined it.

"Where's Mom?"

His mouth tightened into a thin line. "She's… she's asleep."

"I think I should talk to both of you," she said, trying to act more confident than she felt. "Could you maybe wake her up? Please?"

"No, Linh. I can't."

She swallowed again. "Right. Well, we—we can discuss it more in the m-morning." She bit her lip as soon as the stuttered word slipped out. _Focus, brain. This is important. No playing tricks on my voice box._

"Talk to me. What's bothering you?"

Linh hugged her knees to her chest. "Nothing's bothering me. I just had an idea about—about Foxfire." She spoke slowly and deliberately, feeling each consonant in her mouth before she uttered it.

"I'd—I'd like to go to Foxfire."

"And you will, once you're old enough."

"No!" She winced. The word had come out stronger than she had meant it to.

"I want to go this year," she continued. "To Foxfire. And since Tam doesn't want—isn't ready," she corrected after seeing his warning glare. "Since he isn't ready, I could go alone. Pretend that I'm the older one. Nobody will have to know we're twins."

Quan nodded, and for one wonderful second Linh thought he was agreeing with her. But then he said, "Your brother put you up to this, didn't he?"

"No, no, it was m-my idea!"

"Tam, this is exactly what's wrong with you." Her father drew himself up to his full height. "You'll send your little sister to do your dirty work because you're too cowardly to stand up and tell me what you want yourself. I didn't raise you to hide or run away, I raised you to take what you want. But running and hiding seem to be all you ever do. A hopeless weakling like you has no place in the Lost Cities."

Linh was stunned. Her brain could only form one thought:

 _He's never talked to_ me _like this._

"If I didn't know you, I'd think you were a human. Look at the way you stormed out at dinner. No son of mine runs away from an argument like that. I should send you to Exillium instead of Foxfire, and your sister too. She wouldn't last a day, but at least she would die drowning in the ocean rather than forsaking her pride and coming up for air, while you wouldn't even put your head in the water at all—"

Tam jumped to his feet. "My _twin_ is ten times the person you'll ever be!" he shouted. "I don't care if you want me to go to Foxfire or Exillium or the ogre cities—I'll _never_ go anywhere you send me!"

Quan's eyes burned with rage. He raised his right arm. Linh shut her eyes tight, but she didn't have time to put her hands over her ears. The sound was like a tree branch breaking.

When she opened her eyes again, Tam's hand was on his cheek, where an angry red bruise was already forming. He was looking at his father in disbelief. Quan was staring at his palm in utter horror, like his hand had acted of its own accord.

Linh didn't have Tam's gift for memorization, but she knew she would never forget that moment for the eternity she would live. Two pairs of silver-blue eyes blazing with anger. Her bare toes curling into the carpet as she turned her face away. The tree branch breaking.

* * *

Tam bent over the sink and splashed water onto his face. The droplets soaked Linh's blue dress.

She was still in shock. The scene kept replaying in her head, over and over. That was something humans did, not elves—never elves. Just the thought of striking someone horrified her. And it had obviously horrified her father, too, although not until after the fact.

"That was the first time anything like that's happened?" she asked him for the third time.

"The first time," he said. He shook the water from his bangs. "How come you don't believe me? You saw Dad's face."

"I believe you," she said, and she was telling the truth. "I'm just worried."

"Don't be." He looked up at himself in the mirror. His cheek had turned dark purple.

"You need an elixir," said Linh. "I can ask Lady Sofia—"

" _No._ Keep her out of this."

His tone was so forceful that she took a couple steps backwards. "Okay."

"Are you sure you still want to stay?"

"Stay?"

"Sorry, Linh, but you ruined our chance. We have two choices left now. One, let Mom and Dad ship me off to Foxfire. That can't happen."

"Why not?" she asked. "I mean, I know you don't want to go, but would it really be so—"

"That. Can't. Happen," he repeated. "So, second choice. We sneak to the Leapmaster and run away."

Linh contemplated the choices. Running away _was_ looking like a better and better option every minute. But could she really leave the house she had been born in, the grounds she had grown up in, the tutor who had raised her?

And the raintrees…

"What did the zephyrs say? Something about shadow and sea…"

"Silver eyes of shadow and sea, different sides of the same twin, will discover the darkness's key, and run against the wind," Tam recited. "Why?"

"I think it's a prophecy." Only after the words left her mouth did she realize how ridiculous they sounded. Prophecies didn't exist. But then again, neither had zephyrs. Until that night.

But Tam didn't laugh at her. He just shrugged. "Could be," he said. "But where should we go? The north? Further south? The Neutral Territories?"

"I want to see how far the forest goes."

He blinked. "I was thinking we'd go somewhere a little farther away than that."

"Look, if what the zephyrs told us really was a prophecy, I want to fulfill it. I want to learn more from Galatea and—and do whatever we were meant to do."

He shrugged again. "I'll go where you go. Tonight?"

"Tonight," she agreed. She shook out her dress. For a moment she was enraptured by the droplets catching the lamplight in midair, right before they burst.

"I'll get the camping tents—"

"Wait." The thought suddenly struck her. "I need to say goodbye to Mom."

"You'll be wasting your time. You heard Dad. She'll be too drugged out to even know you're there."

She felt a twinge of anger at that. "I can at least try."

* * *

Mai Song was sprawled out on the black velvet sofa. Her hair had come out of its bun and was covering her face.

"Mom," Linh said, even though she knew her mother couldn't hear her. "Tam and I are leaving. F-forever, probably. Dad can tell you why. Please don't hate him when he tells you. We're going to the—" She stopped. There was a tiny chance her mother was still semi-conscious, and Linh didn't want her knowing where she and Tam were going.

"We've found people who think we're lucky," she continued. "We're going to go live with them. And do something important, I know that. Something that matters. Something that would make Dad proud. But for now… goodbye."

She kneeled down and unfurled her mother's right hand, like she had so many times before. A violet sweetshade blossom was clasped in her palm. Linh picked it up gingerly and took a tiny sniff. Her head immediately started spinning. This was the strongest variety her mother had gotten her hands on.

There was a small carved wooden box on the coffee table in front of the sofa. Linh pinched her nose with one hand and lifted the lid with the other. A pouch of sweetshade rested inside. She picked it up and glanced at her mother one last time. Then she went outside.

The ocean roared in her ears as she stepped onto the edge of the cliff. She gathered the pouch and the flower she had taken from her mother in one hand. Then she threw them as far as she could, into the shimmering sea.

Linh had lost count of how many times she had done that.

* * *

A/N: I should be studying for exams instead of stress writing. Actually, rereading this chapter over and over again and wondering if it's too problematic is making me more stressed than I was when I started writing, so I'm just going to do the fun facts and publish this now.

Again, kind of scraping the bottom of the barrel for this fun fact (well it's not really fun, it's mostly just a fact):

Sweetshade, mentioned by Calla as a component of reveriebells in _Neverseen_ , is (at least in this fanfic) the elvin equivalent of an opiate, which is a sedative that is often used in medicine for inducing sleep and relieving pain (such as morphine and codeine). Man-made opiates are called opioids and include substances such as vicodin and fentanyl. All opiates are derived from opium, the dried latex obtained from the opium poppy ( _Lachryma papaveris_ ). Opiates are extremely addictive, and addicts can suffer from paranoia, chronic nausea, liver damage, and hypoxia (a type of oxygen deficiency). So, not good.


	5. Hey everyone

Hey everyone,

I haven't updated for a while, and that's because I've completely lost motivation to write this. So I'm going on what will probably be a permanent hiatus with this story. I might come back and finish it at some point, but I most likely won't.

I'm sorry.

—Sammie

P.S. I've been thinking of finally changing my pen name to elysianoriel, which is the name on all the other writing sites I'm on. What do you think? Should I do it?


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